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Who loves wooden gears? We do! We do! Wooden hand high five all around for a tool that helps you create the gears and the templates to crank those creations. The Gear template generator from woodgears.ca is a magical web-based tool (probably) using little wooden mathematical gears on the back end to output a 2D downloadable file, that you can also print, slap on a piece of cardboard, plywood, acrylic or other material and cut out.
Add this to the list of best 3D CAD apps ever… And then toss your 3D analog mouse. Wait, not just yet, but soon. Maide Control is putting 3D model control on the screen and they’re doing it via the iPad. Turns out, its also more than just a digital 3D mouse. Take a look.
I believe all the texture locators have dropped off my face from pure shock. Luxology has just released awesomeness disguised in the form of the new modo Rigging Master Course for modo 501. It’s 26+ hours of having your brain contraints tweaked by the incredible Rich Hurrey, Techincal Director at Pixar, who will take you through everything that entails becoming an animation master with the new Schematic viewport and Assembly groups in modo 501. Prepare to link objects. Link.
The lonliness that consumes you when the CNC operators talk shop is all about to end. You may not know how to bolt a billet of aluminum into a chunk without removing half your arm skin, but you can download a program with less trauma and bring a CHUCKle to a machinists face. A fresh CNC simulator program, aptly named CNC Simulator is available and liable to interest anyone who has or has wished they could shape materials on a CNC Machine. Me? I’m gonna use it to simulate the 5-axis cut of a mechanical arm the drill press and milling machine operators can use to battle against each other. Prepare for the download and some jazzy CNC Simulation video down below.
Ah, the project scope. The crucial document many of us follow as a guideline while we’re designing or engineering the next greatest thing. Its entire existence is to keep the focus by describing in detail the new product’s soon to be features, costs, and milestone dates. Love them or hate them, many of us couldn’t work without one. I’ve written dozens of scopes and over the years I’ve learned how to make them even better. Here is a way to bring more meaning to this famous document and consequently the work we produce. I call it… the Last Page.
Have you ever tried to render glorious rays of light with your mind? It can’t be done (unless you have a perfect mix of abysynth and electricity.) In lieu of that you’ll want some easily adjustable, totally customizable HDR images to slap in your renderings. That’s where HDR Light Studio comes in. They’ve developed a special plugin available in HDR Light Studio 2 that adds the ability to create and adjust lighting, in real-time, directly on your KeyShot model. Wow.
Why there’s nothing I quite like more than buttoning up the finest faux suede longcoat, donning my tophat and printing colorful componentry into the wee hours of the morning. There’s just something enjoyable about it that frightens people slightly. Part of that may be the amazing color assortment of plastic filament I have wrapped around my face. It’s all thanks to a wonderful new shop making the acquisition of such material a dream come true for plastic hacks and print shops alike. It’s the Faberdashery, a shop for the refined maker who delights in the wonders of 3D printing.
What’s more fun than a barrel of charred monkey pelts? A barrel of super simple concept car design in SolidWorks. Or in this case, a video of super simple car design in SolidWorks. Tony Suarez created a car modeling video to shock and stun surface modelers a while back. Now, he’s back with surfaces to show a super simple approach to conceptualizing a car with SolidWorks. The video is a bit fast-paced, but it’s got just the right amount of information to get you going on your own.
I think you know what would happen if you locked an engineer and designer in a room together at the same time with nothing more than a microphone and some bluesy background music. Yeah… they would lock eyes, squeeze their bowels and proceed to have an insightful conversation about design, engineering and other CAD related topics. Aaaaaaand, that’s exactly what has happened. It also turns out that I, Josh Mings, am one of the people stuck inside that room. The other is Adam OHern, industrial designer and purveyor of fine tips and tricks at CADjunkie.com. We’ve teamed up to bring you the first podcast of its kind, delivering CAD industry news and analysis, tips, tricks, Q&A and a special guest EACH Monday! It’s Engineer vs. Designer and it starts, today.
If there’s one thing I like, it’s when someone takes all the software I would need to make a video of a dinosaur blowing fire-breathing snail babies out its nostril, and compiles it onto one DVD. Totally makes the job that much easier. ArtistX is exactly that tool. A complete OS kernel? no problem. 2500 free 2D, 3D, audio and video programs? NO PROBLEM. It’s all there, neatly organized into a self-launching multimedia production studio that will keep you locked to your computer screen the two minutes you’re actually away from it. Screenshots and download joys after the jump.
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